קומו ועלו להר וה׳ יהא עימכם בבניית הבית • נבואת חגי הנביא ליום כ״א בתשרי | הרב אליהו ובר

Let's read a bit of the prophecy of Haggai the prophet for today. Haggai the prophet stands on the 21st of the month and prophesies an interesting prophecy, and we need to understand its background. He says—I will say the words he says, which no one understands the background for. He says... "Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land, says the Lord, and work: for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts." And one asks, what does Haggai want? What is he talking about? The story is this: Haggai the prophet stood on the first of the month of Elul and shouted to the people of Israel: "Go build the...""... Temple, why aren't you building?" Everyone ran to their own house; they weren't building the Temple. The people of Israel thought all the time: "We really want to, we wanted it to come down from heaven, we were waiting for it to...I don't know what, for the rabbis to tell us." And so what? Are you yelling at us? What do you want? You're yelling at us—fine, now you've said we should start building. He told them—no, he's yelling at them. They're already starting to make plans; the month of Elul arrives, they decided , they understood the hint, they start making plans, and they sit and organize the, uh, the Temple. They realize the Temple will be flawed; it will be poor material. Where would they get the money to build something grand? They weren't that rich, they were poor; they said, "Well, the Temple we will build won't be worth anything.""We were right not to have built it until now." And besides, just a moment—what kind of people were they? Yes, we take the Four Species on Sukkot: the Lulav, the Etrog , the Hadassim. Our Sages say the Etrog represents people who have both Torah and Mitzvot. The Lulav: people who have Torah but no Mitzvot. The Hadassim: Mitzvot but no Torah. The Aravah: people who have nothing at all. What do we say to them? The Holy One, Blessed be He, says to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the rest of the people: "Who among you is left who saw this house in its former glory? And how do you see it now?" You're looking at your preparations—you haven't even built it yet, so how do you see the preparations? "Is it not, in your eyes, as nothing?" Does it look like anything to you? Something to you? There is nothing. "Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel , says the Lord; and be strong, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land, says the Lord, and work: for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts." You have nothing to fear; the thing that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, and My spirit remains among you; do not fear, I...I will take care of it, do not...Don't worry about it being like this, He concludes: "The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, says the Lord of hosts; the glory of this latter house shall be greater..."" ...than the former, says the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace." Haggai the prophet says, the Holy One, Blessed be He, says: "Bring what you have."" >> Bring yourselves, bring what you can, come, build what you can, do what you can, and I will already take care of the rest." Pay attention to what is happening on the Temple Mount, a generation of great sorrow, that on the seventh day of the holiday, the day we come to celebrate with everything, and what happens to us? Unfortunately, we cannot come to celebrate there. But the truth is that the Holy One, Blessed be He, says: You came, you brought what you could, everyone brings themselves, whoever could brought his wife, the children, everyone what they were able to offer, naturally whoever could come. We brought, you brought yourselves, you did what you could, now it is my role, your role. And this is the role not only of those who came, the secret of those who can do and do, do what you can, I will already stir the heavens and the earth. And this is the secret of the willow that we shake on Hoshana Rabbah, the day on which this prophecy was said. Rashi says it is a decree of the prophets, that it is a custom of the prophets, or prophets, Rashi says: Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Haggai stands on Hoshana Rabbah and says: You want to know, right, you feel that you are willows, you have no Torah and no mitzvot, you feel like a willow that is worth a few pennies. Yes, a lulav costs money, this willow is worth almost nothing. That is how we come with the willows, putting down the four species, coming only with willows and saying here we are doing it by way of a hint. Even though all week in the Temple they would set up the willows, wonder in the Temple, the Holy One, Blessed be He, said: I want the willows, with this I want to celebrate the Temple, surround it with my willows. And we come on this day, shaking the willows and rejoicing with them. May the Holy One, Blessed be He, help, for Mine is the silver and Mine is the gold, and may we merit to see the Holy Temple and its glory restored, may the glory of this latter house be greater than the former, Amen.